New Perspectives on Japan: from the U.S.-Japan Network for the Future

The thirteen members of Cohort III of the U.S.-Japan Network for the Future address a wide array of challenges and opportunities for Japan in “New Perspectives on Japan from the U.S.-Japan Network for the Future,” released by the Mansfield Foundation June 9. The U.S.-Japan Network for the Future was initiated in 2009 to identify and support professionals in the United States who demonstrate and interest in and potential for becoming Japan specialists and policy experts. As part of the program, participants are required to prepare a policy paper on an issue facing Japan and the U.S.-Japan alliance. The fourteen essays compiled in this publication consider such challenges for Japan as: building consensus on constitutional and national security questions, ensuring economic growth, adjusting the U.S.-Japan alliance to meet new security challenges, and addressing demographic challenges. They also suggest opportunities for Japan to advance agriculture and immigration reform, pioneer innovative solutions to workplace issues, and contribute to world politics. In his foreword to the publication, U.S.-Japan Network for the Future Advisory Committee member Ezra F. Vogel notes the policy papers “reflect the broad diversity of interests Japan and the United States share.”